How safe are we?

I came to this campus not giving any thought to my safety.

The place seemed all right. I came for my tour and saw some of those emergency towers around, a lot of streetlights lining the paths and some student cadets patrolling around. I had nothing to fear.

I’m leaving IU fearing everything.

After this weekend’s knifing at Tulip Tree Apartments, we should all be afraid. Not because the knife incident happened but because of the way it was publicized and brought to the people.

IU-Notify, a service that sends those who have their phone number registered with the system a text message and gives them a phone call started off with “IU Bloomington Alert! An armed individual is at large on the BL campus. Take safe shelter. Lock door. Follow instructions from authorities” at about 4 a.m. Sunday.

Panic-inducing.

Personally, I woke up and began thinking about the madman with a shotgun running
around campus. But then the night progressed.

Soon it was clear that it wasn’t a shotgun, it was a knife. And the suspect wasn’t “at large,” it was an altercation amongst three friends resulting in one person suffering a wound. After getting the facts, IU-Notify became less of a helpful source and more of a fear-mongering one.

It seems like a simple thing to be complaining about, but incidents such as this can truly be detrimental to campus safety. On Monday, the talk of campus was how the system had screwed up and how annoying and funny that was.

IU-Notify has cried wolf and lost credibility because of it. The system would have been better waiting a few extra minutes to gain information from the police handling the case. Instead, it seems like they decided to go off random gossip.

On a similar note, the emergency towers that gave me comfort on my first visit have just newly rocked my world.

Recently a class discussion came up about how little the towers are used and how to properly use them. Apparently, when you use the emergency towers, you press the button, walk to the next tower and press that button. With this system the police can track you and know where you’re headed.

I never knew this.

This is an even easier fix than IU-Notify. This is simple education.

Perhaps instead of spending so much time explaining why it really doesn’t matter if you get a Mac or a PC, orientation leaders could spend some more time on safety education.

We don’t exactly have the best track record going right now. Recently, the signs for missing student Lauren Spierer were taken down by the city, a pretty dismal update in that whole situation.

But we didn’t seem to learn enough from the Spierer case.

Sure, the campus experienced a buzz of general “we need to be safer,” but here we are still not knowing how to use the emergency towers and being grossly misinformed by IU-Notify.

We could be better, IU.

I’m just happy I’m getting out before Bloomington has a chance for full-on anarchy.

­— sjostrow@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Sam Ostrowski on Twitter @ostrowski_s_j.